I suspect it was a bit of both. The cunning cynics let the raving neo-cons have their way because they saw an electoral bonanza in waving the flag and beating the drums. The vision of Mr. Roves “permanent Republican majority” shimmered in the air, before their eyes. Neither saw that we were plowing straight into a turd-infested fever swamp. And so it goes.
Was that true in 1998 as well, when we struck them militarily? Answer honestly now.
It isn’t as if our problems with the Hussein regime sprang from thin air, you know.
I’m sure you are aware of the numberless violations of the no-fly zone, the attacks on our planes, and the violations of the inspections rules, right? Indeed, these were the issues that caused us to ramp up the conflict in 1998.
The Duelfer Report was pretty clear about Hussein’s intentions to restart their WMD programs after sanctions fell. And sanctions were crumbling, due to opposition from many UN member states to maintain them. Even had they continued, the regime was skimming billions from Oil for Food funds to continue numerous illegal activities. All of this is well documented in that report.
What in that report do you have an issue with?
You are wrong, frankly, about Iraq being a diversion. And being wrong about this has allowed the Democratic Party to fool themselves into thinking they can safely oppose the Iraq war, pin the defeat on Bush, and head into the future with clean hands and a clear conscience.
A defeat won’t be seen by the rest of the world as a Republican defeat, and we’ll be paying the price for it for a long time.
The Republicans put their political interests aside in the 1940s in order to win a war. This likely cost them some elections, but it was the right thing to do, and had the happy benefit of marginalizing the isolationists. The Democrats didn’t do this now, in the case of Iraq.
The result is that an antiwar faction that ought to have similarly been marginalized, in my opinion, was strengthened.
I honestly thank you for sharing that Mr. Moto. It is illuminating.
You do see a difference between the US response in 1998 and 2003, I assume. It is that measured approach that Bush chose not to pursue. I trust you do not think it was wise to begin occupying a nation with no plan for that occupation, yet that is exactly what the US did. Whatever Saddam’s sins were, real or imagined, they could have been addressed with destroying all that kept the nation from chaos. War should always be the last resort. This war was Bush’s only resort.
I’m certainly not going to defend all of our actions in this war.
But on the other hand, I think it ought to be clear that there were problems with Oil for Food, the fact that Hussein was dodging inspections left and right, and the fact that he was racking up many no-flight zone violations, was supporting terrorism in his region, and clearly had plans to resume WMD programs when sanctions weakened. And for all of this, he faced little threat throughout the 1990s.
That was a major mistake, and clearly we are paying for that now as well.
Yes, who could forget the centrifuge parts buried under a backyard rose bush?
VERY Scary! 
Why wouldn’t he want a big terrorist attack ? A big attack tends to be on a city because there are more people, and cities tend to be more liberal than rural areas. I’m sure he’d love it if someone managed to smuggle a nuke into New York or LA or San Francisco - any place but Washington DC. There’d be all those dead godless liberals and queers, and they could use it to declare martial law under Bush.
I see no evidence that the Republican leadership has any concern at all for the welfare of the people of America, or America itself; I’m sure they’d cheerfully sacrifice a few cities for more power.
Cause for war?
Not when we went to war, he wasn’t.
And utterly without effect
If you mean Zarqawi, he was in the zone WE were protecting.
Never mind clearly, we should go to war over plans? :dubious:
What were those “no-fly zones” you mentioned already? :dubious:
No, the major mistake we are paying for is the notion that “if Clinton did it, it must have been bad”. The mistake you’re STILL propagating. If you can call it a mere mistake, and not an utterly irresponsible, hate-inspired, absolutely counterfactual delusion.
This catastrophe is the fault of people like you, which includes you. *Accept * your responsbility. Don’t be a fucking coward and tell lies intended to place the blame on anyone else.
Well, that would be because you’re an idiotic extremist moron with similar capacity for nuanced, reasoned thought as any idiotic extremist moron who’s Pitted on these boards. With, of course, the advantage that your years of sterling service to the ideals of asshattery mean that you can’t be called a troll; unlike said Pitted people who we generally have to check to see that they actually mean the nonsense they spew, a procedure we can happily ignore in your case.
But hey, don’t let me keep you from speaking your peace. <---- A bad pun, and not a spelling mistake.
I note that among your insults you carefully avoid producing any evidence that I’m wrong about the Republican leadership - probably because there isn’t any such evidence. They are that uncaring towards America and it’s people, their behavior shows this.
Illuminating and frankly, completely bizarre. There clearly exists some linkage between our universe and some bizarro one with yellow sky or something. Some people are just fundamentally immune to fact, logic or slap in the face with a wet fish reality.
Simply because I believe no such evidence would convince you. I could point to bills sponsored to help healthcare, or I could suggest they actually do believe (in disagreement with you and of course others) that what they’re doing is actually best for the country. Yet, through your miraculous psychic powers granted by your apparently vitriolic hate, you’ll be able to see through their feigned humanity.
I note among your response that you carefully avoid refuting any of my insults. And yes, i’m willing to believe i’m genuinely wrong about you. But it is a faith equivalent to my faith in God.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13558-2003Dec18?language=printer
Iraqs problem was that they were no longer useful. They were our friends in the war against Iran. Once they served their purpose they no longer were needed and were expendable. The Arab nieghbors knew he no threat to the area. I am sure we did too.
As the elections get closer and closer, we will have more and more stress on domestic terrorism . Get out your orange glasses
Did Kuwait believe he no longer was a threat, or did they support sanctions and also support dissident Iraqis in hopes of toppling the regime? Wasn’t this true for Saudi Arabia as well?
Wasn’t the US official policy after 1998 (indeed, the policy supported by both the Republican and Democratic Parties here) the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq?
I have no orange glasses. Would regular, clear glasses be OK, if I filled them with orange Tang?
No, it has to be Kool-Aid.
It’s also hard to produce evidence that Republicans aren’t shape-shifting space lizards, but this is generally not taken as proof that GOP headquarters is located on Sigma Draconis.
Saudi Arabia home of 18 out of 20 terrorists in the towers. Financed and raised them. Were they worried about Saadam. NO
I would be surprised if Kuwait was still worried. He was a paper tiger, gutted and practically disarmed. He was a threat to his own until we showed them what a real theat was. We have no right to move against soverign countries because we don’t like their leaders. If that was right ,the Iranis and half the world would have a right to actively remove Bush.
It’s a question of scale. The 1998 strike sufficed, by all indications.
To what effect?
All of which were unsuccessful, much to the Bushies’ dismay.*
Mostly the implications you’re drawing from it. The Duelfer Report was also pretty clear that Iraq hadn’t made a concerted effort to recommence its nuclear weapons program since 1991, and its capacity to do so had significantly degraded over the years since.
Which means that the worst-case potential threat posed by Saddam was limited to his eventual possession of bio and chemical weapons. Like it or not, the risks involved in going to war were far greater, in this instance, than the risks of doing absolutely nothing. And we weren’t doing absolutely nothing. We had no-fly zones, we had sanctions (yeah, I know about oil-for-food, but that simply reduced the effectiveness of the sanctions; they still were a hindrance to Saddam), and in the run-up to war, we got the inspectors in there. Remember, the point of the Iraq AUMF was (at least supposedly) to put a credible threat behind the inspections - which turned up a big fat NOTHING.
We Democrats appreciate your concern. But it’s clear to the vast majority of Americans that, in retrospect, going into Iraq was a really crappy idea - and the main reason why public support for Congressional Dems has gone downhill of late is because they rolled over and funded the war without any timelines to get us out.
The rest of the world won’t see it as a defeat. Most of the world will see it as the U.S. withdrawing from a civil war rather than continuing to aid certain factions. And for “the terrorists,” it’s a win-win situation: it’s good for them if we stay, because it reduces our ability to do anything else abroad, and provides them with a school of hard knocks for asymmetrical warfare. And if we leave, yes, they get to make fun of The Great Satan.
Seems our leaders are more afraid of being taunted than of anything else. Big, manly men they are. :rolleyes:
Except for, this war isn’t the right thing to do. Bit of a problem, that.
In this war, the antiwar faction has been right at every step of the way. Saddam wasn’t a threat. We haven’t advanced the cause of democracy. The chaos that some of us were raising as a significant possibility has indeed come to pass. The big winner is Iran. We’ve deprived the Afghanistan conflict of resources. Our leaders have less time and attention for other world problems, and we’d have no troops to spare for a military response anywhere. The war has turned out to be about some mixture of oil and imperialism, with the goal, increasingly clearly, being to stay for the sake of staying. (Permanent bases make great lily pads.) We’ve given up even trying to catch bin Laden; guess Bush never watched Maltese Falcon.
The antiwar faction should be running the freakin’ country, because we’ve been right at every turn, while all the Serious Thinkers were wrong - about the war, about Bush, about everything.
*Desert badger badger badger…
Actually, there are space lizards in both parties!